Tag: Amy

I know I am behind with posting, but I will just keep plugging along. Time to go back to July with Amy.

I knew it would be painful to watch Asif Kapadia’s documentary, Amy. I knew it would also be hard to write about it. I first listened to the Terry Gross Fresh Air interview (transcript here) with Kapadia and Winehouse’s former manager, Nick Shymansky. The saddest part of that Fresh Air show for me was learning that when a teenage Amy told her mother about her new discovery of bulimia, her mother, whose non-assertive personality prevented her from parenting her daughter, did nothing.

In the documentary, I learned how her father’s affair and her parents’ divorce was the turning point in Winehouse’s life that was the beginning of her downward spiral that resulted in her death at 27. I learned how her father exploited her. I began to see her as a girl and then a woman who never had a chance. As someone who has been truly touched by her music, I cannot help but wish that she had not had the pain that inspired so many of her songs. Because Amy brilliantly shows us the path that Ms. Winehouse took from life as a happy child with beyond-extraordinary talent to one as a star haunted by demons and hounded by the press (and the general, insensitive public), I could see clearly her spiral that seemed inevitable because those she loved the most were not there in meaningful ways. She was doomed. She deserved to have a better life. I do not believe everything happens for a reason. I do not believe a 27-year-old should be sacrificed for some “greater” cause.

The home videos, the interviews, the behind-the-scenes expressions of emotions, and the very well-placed Winehouse songs (with lyrics on the screen for us to follow) make the structure of the film create an impact that is that much more powerful. I found myself wondering, “When will it get to the part when she becomes world famous?” But I was glad that I was seeing so much of the journey. And ultimately that world fame was, as it often is, destructive.

Amy is a success because of the care taken to make sure we understand Winehouse’s humanity and her sincerity. She is a hero to me. She had everyone around her, but she actually had no one and held on for as long as she could. She gave us her art that she could never quite do the way she wanted. What she wanted for her career she never realized, but I take away her genius. I also take away the peace and self-image that she should have had; instead, those gifts and that security were selfishly and brutally taken away from her. If you are a fan of genius and true sensitivity and true art, see Amy.